


but i was never brave

by acronymed



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Mentioned Suicide Attempt, alternate 1x13, because i am trash for them, core four heavy, implied/assumed cheronica, some bg varchie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 18:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16748941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acronymed/pseuds/acronymed
Summary: They stumble their way inside, hands clasped, blankets twisting around their legs, Veronica’s hair tousled with sleep and her eyeliner slightly smudged. Betty looks at her, at the kittenish way she stretches and the taut muscles of her stomach as her shirt rides up.Oh,she feels the panic attack coming on, even before her breathing starts to stutter, even before Veronica catches her wide eyes and immediately goes into Crisis Mode,oh no.Or: Betty comes to terms with being in love with her best friend. AU from 1x13 onwards. ft. bughead, varchie and the fickleness of feelings at sixteen. core-four heavy.





	but i was never brave

**Author's Note:**

> in case no one can tell, i am absolute trash for S1 beronica. and for veronica in general. 
> 
> this sat on my computer unfinished for months so it’s probably rushed af whoops

That night goes something like this: they don’t make it to the jubilee, Betty’s hastily scribbled speech crumpled in the pocket of her jacket, only partially forgotten.

Cheryl is shivering in the car, even bundled in Veronica’s fur trimmed winter coat and Archie’s letterman. Jughead shrugs off his jacket and adds it to the growing pile of clothes she’s buried under in the backseat with barely a grumble. Betty is struck, not for the first time, by how much she might love him.

Archie and Veronica look at Cheryl’s chattering teeth and shaking fingers, then each other. Veronica digs her keys out of her purse and tosses them to Jughead without blinking. “You scratch it, you deal with me. Got it, My Chemical Woemance?”

“Yes, Elvira,” Jughead says, rolling his eyes, but he’s careful as he gets into the driver’s seat.

Betty feels a flash of _something_ at Veronica not trusting her with the keys, while Archie and Veronica crowd in on either side of Cheryl, curling their arms around her to share their heat.

Jughead says her name and she climbs into the car numbly, caught somewhere between emotionally drained and bursting with adrenaline. Veronica’s perfectly manicured nails catch in her hair from the backseat and scratch gently.

“B,” Veronica meets her eyes in the rearview mirror, something far too knowing in the sharp planes of her face, “unclench, honey.”

 _Oh._ Betty looks down at her hands, at the little crescent shaped divots in her skin and the blood welling up underneath. That’s why she isn’t driving.

Jughead’s knuckles go white on the steering wheel when Cheryl says, “I’m fine, you guys can just drive me home,” with only a slight waver, her mascara smudged to hell under her eyes. She looks very young, Betty thinks. Young and sad and scared, not at all the same vicious mean girl she was at school. “I just need to warm up.”

“Nice try, Elsa.” Jughead’s voice isn’t as biting as it usually is when he talks to Cheryl. “The only place we’re going is the hospital.”

Cheryl stiffens. “Listen here, you poster child for suicide prevention hotlines—”

“Pot, meet kettle.”

“Sulkspeare, I swear to god—”

 _“Cheryl_ ,” Veronica sighs, exasperated, her hand falling from Betty’s hair to Cheryl’s arm. “We’re going for Archie. He broke his hand.”

 _And also to get you committed._ None of them say it outloud, but they’re all thinking it. They’d all shared a look when Archie had dragged Cheryl out of the water and gotten her breathing again. They all knew what the next steps were.

“Oh,” Cheryl says quietly, all the fight going out of her. She’s finally noticed Jughead’s flannel wrapped around Archie’s hand in a haphazardly made bandage. Betty can see the dark patches where the blood is seeping through from the front seat. “I suppose we can’t let thrift shop Ed Sheeran’s music career end before it’s even begun.”

Jughead bites the corner of his lip and Betty knows he’s trying to stifle a laugh. In the backseat, Veronica makes a low sound, the one she makes when she’s amused but doesn’t want to show it - it’s the one she makes around Jughead a lot. Betty half-turns in her seat so Veronica can see her roll her eyes.

“Classic Cheryl,” Archie says, his voice fond as his arm tightens around her. “What would we do without you?”

“Have self-esteem,” Jughead deadpans. The sharp turn where the road past the river becomes the main stretch to Riverdale makes them all lean slightly. “Smile more often.”

“Don’t hold back on my account,” Cheryl mutters. Betty catches a flash of her burrowing into Veronica and putting her head on her shoulder through the mirror. “Really.”

Veronica doesn’t seem even remotely put out at Cheryl’s still wet hair dripping all over her bare shoulder. If Betty shifts a little to the left, she can trace the path of the water droplet sliding from the slope of Veronica’s neck to the collar of her dress with her eyes. She can feel the muscles in her hands tensing, and sits on them.

Veronica must notice - she always does, even when she isn’t looking - because her hand comes back up to slide into the base of Betty’s ponytail, massaging gently.

Every part of Betty’s body melts into the seat. Jughead’s eyes flick towards her, towards Veronica’s soothing fingers, and carefully puts his palm on her knee, squeezing. The hospital is finally coming into view.

They park and Archie bundles Cheryl up and out of the car with one arm, his eyes worried. Jughead eases her away from him, scowling at his broken hand, palm wrapped around Cheryl’s elbow, the other on the small of Betty’s back. Veronica’s cool fingers slip around Betty’s wrist. Her thumb rubs across the broken skin of her palm.

 _I love you,_ she thinks, as they enter the hospital and a nurse sees the bloody flannel and immediately grabs Archie. She doesn’t know who she’s referring to, though. 

(Cheryl kicks and screams when the nurses start to lead her away, Jughead still at the reception desk whispering furiously about what had happened. Veronica slips away from Betty to touch Cheryl’s hands, her back, her face, and murmur soothing nothings to her. She follows the group of nurses all the way to the end of the corridor, until she can’t anymore, her shoulders stiff, her spine straight - the same girl who’d stomped down the hall all those months ago, snarling, _I don’t follow rules; I make them._

Cheryl calms, her eyes wet, as they turn the corner. Betty, suddenly, feels like she’s absorbed all of her fury.)

.

.

.

Jughead sits between them in the waiting room, one arm looped around Betty’s shoulders, his other hand tentatively resting on Veronica’s elbow. There’s a part of Betty that thinks she should be between them, that watching two of her most favourite people struggle to navigate each other with such fragility shouldn’t fill her with the warmth it does, but she isn’t in any condition to ground anyone right now. There’s still a tremor in her hands she can’t quite still, an anxious pulse in the back of her head that won’t quit. Every time she catches a glimpse of the crease between Veronica’s brows or the jitter of Jughead’s right leg, it gets worse.

“They’re going to be _fine_ , Richie Rich.” Betty feels Jughead lean away from her as he nudges Veronica lightly. “Archie’s tougher than he looks and I’m pretty sure Cheryl’s some kind of immortal Cthulhu-esque monster at this point.”

Veronica shoots him the briefest smile, shaky but grateful, and huffs a laugh. “You’re incorrigible.”

“But honest.”

Veronica presses her lips together. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“ _Children_ ,” Betty says, exasperated, as the nurse who’d taken Archie to emergency steps into the lobby, “behave, please.”

“I will if he does,” Veronica drawls. Jughead snorts and bumps her again, which Betty is pretty sure is to distract Veronica from the way her voice is hitching, caught on the beginnings of a sob, as the nurse approaches. Veronica elbows him in the ribs in response.

“Betty, this _violence_ ,” Jughead mock-whispers, while Veronica rolls her eyes, his breath warm against Betty’s cheek. “I’m feeling so attacked right now.”

“Oh my God, you walking Tumblr text-post.”

Betty’s skin prickles at the surge of affection that rushes through her, even as she raises one eyebrow in a silent approximation of _are you two done?_ Veronica and Jughead look appropriately ashamed.

The nurse stops in front of them, tired, but smiling. “Most of the damage to your friend’s hand is to his knuckles, but he fractured two bones badly. He’ll have to spend a few weeks in a cast, but he’ll make a full recovery.”

“Thank God,” Veronica exhales, slumping in the hard plastic seat. Jughead’s whole body almost collapses again Betty, and she realizes how wound up he’s been until that moment. How worried. “What about - what about Cheryl?”

Here, the nurse’s mouth softens. “Based on what you told us, we’re going to keep her under observation for the night. But…” She looks between the three of them, defeated. “Unless she willingly decides to check herself into a program, or her parents enrol her, we can’t do anything else.”

“She tried to _kill herself_.” Veronica’s jaw is clenched, her whole body jerking as if she wants to stand up. Betty sees Jughead wrap his fingers around her upper arm. “And you’re going to send her right back into the Hell-house that pushed her to it?”

Her tone is even, almost flat, which is how Betty knows she’s furious, more furious than when Chuck had slut-shamed her, more furious than when Cheryl had made Betty feel like the smallest person in the world, more furious than any other time Betty has ever seen her truly angry.

“I’m sorry,” the nurse says, and she sounds like she really means it, “but our hands are tied.”

“V,” Betty says gently, when Veronica rises abruptly, eyebrows drawn together, “we’ve done everything we can.”

“ _No,”_ Veronica snaps, turning sharply on one spiked heel, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “We _haven’t_.”

She storms off down the hall, towards where Cheryl had been taken, the nurse chasing after her, saying, “you can’t go in there!” while Veronica shoots her a look that could freeze the sun as they disappear out of sight.

“God help whoever gets in her way,” Jughead mutters into Betty’s hair, after a long beat where they both stare down the hall. She coughs to cover a giggle; he’s not wrong. “Five bucks says she makes at least one nurse cry.”

“No.” Betty gets that spike of protectiveness she’s come to realize is just part of the package when you’re friends with a reformed mean girl. The thought of Veronica acting anything like Cheryl turns her insides cold. “Veronica would never belittle anyone like that.”

 _Not anymore, at least,_ her brain supplies, because Veronica has told her too many stories for Betty not to know what she’s capable of. To know the whip sharp crack of her cruelty that lies underneath the cupcakes and smiles and _Mad Men_ references. To know how far Veronica Cecilia Lodge has really come.

“Ah, yes,” Jughead drawls, “I forgot she’s the champion of females everywhere. Even evil ones.”

“You’re not even trying to pretend you don’t mean Cheryl,” Betty says dryly, hooking her foot around his ankle. She wants to be as close to him as possible - she always does, really, but in this moment she feels the urge so much more strongly, this need to crawl out of her skin and into his.

Down the hall, they hear: “Unless you want a hailstorm of lawsuits on your doorstep faster than you can say _code blue_ , I suggest you _let me see her_.”

They both look at each other and blink. The nurse from earlier comes rushing out of the back, harried and fumbling with some paperwork at the reception desk. She’s gone just as fast, a thick folder tucked under one arm.

“Classic Veronica,” Jughead says finally, almost… _proud._ Betty feels that warmth again and snuggles deeper into his side. “If anyone’s going to convince Cheryl to stay here, it’s her.”

Betty tucks her hands under his jacket, against the heat of his shirt, chin hooked on his shoulder, and breathes him in. Keeps her nails pressed to the soft cotton draped over the spurs of his ribs. Tells herself she doesn’t want to squeeze. Tries hard to make herself believe it.

.

.

.

Cheryl agrees to stay in the hospital and get treatment, on two conditions: none of them tell _anyone_ where she is, and Veronica has to come visit her regularly.

“Does she have a crush on you?” Archie asks, after they leave the hospital, his brow furrowed. His cast is already covered in scribbles from the three of them: hearts from Betty, a crown from Jughead. Veronica had written her favourite quote from _Donnie Darko_ in a flourish of slanted, looping letters, to commemorate the first time the four of them had all had a movie night at Archie’s. Betty feels a smile threatening to burst across her face every time she looks at it. “I mean, I wouldn’t blame her, but like. Yeah.”

“Oh, Archiekins.” Veronica leans into his side and pecks him on the cheek, open palm braced on the swell of his bicep. “Don’t be jealous - she just doesn’t have anyone else to talk to. We’re friends, sort of.”

Betty feels a white hot flash of _something_ when Veronica’s lips meet his skin, but she can’t explain what it is and it’s gone as quickly as it came. Jughead squeezes her hand, his face curious, and there’s a tightness at the corners of her mouth - she’s scowling. She shakes her head, gives him a small half-way smile. _I’m fine._

“I guess that makes sense,” Jughead muses, when he’s satisfied she’s okay. His thumb drags lazily across her knuckles. “Satan needs friends too, right?”

“ _Juggie_ ,” Betty sighs, as Veronica flips him off with a sweet smile. Archie snickers. Betty watches the way he tries to catch Veronica’s fingers with his, watches the way Veronica dances just out of reach. “Why are you both like this?”

“It’s how we show affection,” Veronica says simply, and wiggles her eyebrows at Jughead when he makes a face. “Isn’t that right, _Forsythe_?”

“Call me that again and I’m pressing charges,” Jughead grumps. Veronica cackles, sharp and clear, the sort of laugh she does when Betty tells a particularly good joke that makes her carefully crafted persona threaten to slip, and treks ahead of them to the car. “I hate you all.”

Archie slaps him on the shoulder with his good hand and grins, that charming, All-American, dimpled face Betty had loved for so long full of joy. “Love you too, dude.”

The parking lot is a mostly empty, ice-slick mess. The snowfall had caught everyone off guard, and there aren’t nearly enough salt-trucks in town to meet demand, so the hospital has settled for putting a series of wet-floor signs along the concrete path that runs parallel to the parking stalls. _Warning,_ they say, in bold black font, _floor is slippery when wet!_ How Veronica is managing to sashay ahead of them so gracefully in her six inch heels, the ones with the bright red soles, Betty will never know, but she’s watching the slow, nearly sensual sway of Veronica’s plaid skirt as she moves when her boot catches on the edge of the frozen curb and slides out from under her.

Jughead catches her easily with the hand not curled in her own - she’d been sure, for a moment, that she was going to drag him down with her. His hand spans nearly the entire breadth of her lower back, pressed tight against her spine.

His mouth brushes her forehead tenderly, and her heart swells. “You alright there, Nancy Drew?”

“Yeah,” she stammers, and resists the urge to bury her face in his jacket. The steady click of Veronica’s heels on the pavement had stopped the moment her foot had started to skid and, when she looks over her shoulder, Veronica’s closer than before, one hand barely raised, face pinched. Betty’s looking at her when she says, “I'm fine, I just wasn’t paying attention.”

“Too much going on in that big brain of yours,” Jughead chuckles, and sets her upright. Betty casually slips her hand out of his and pretends to smooth out her clothes, the weight of Veronica’s concerned stare almost suffocating.

“Betty Cooper, ace detective: foiled by pavement,” Veronica says finally, and circles the car, keys jangling. It’s easy to forget she knows how to drive, with how often her town car picks her up and drops her off. Betty figures it’s a small freedom for Veronica, the same way it is for her - the one thing they can do without the shadows of their parents at their shoulders.

Out of habit, she goes for the front passenger seat, before she pauses and asks across the cartop: “Is Archie sitting up front?”

Veronica looks at her like she’s grown a second head. “No? That’s your spot.”

Betty’s heart skips, just once, and she fumbles with the handle on the door, face heating. She doesn’t know why Veronica saying and doing things like that gets to her so much, she just knows it always has - when she’d called her a smokeshow that first day, when she’d defended her from Cheryl, when she’d hold her hands to keep her from digging her nails into her palms, when she’d tell her she was the train to the rest of her life that she’d almost missed.

“B?” Veronica’s nails tap staccato on the hood. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Betty mumbles, as the boys clamber into the backseat without a second thought, and bites her lip. “Just… just thinking.”

Veronica is quiet, and when Betty flicks her gaze up to her she’s frowning, just a little, her eyes drawn to a spot somewhere near Betty’s chin. “You sure?”

The hesitation in her voice is what makes Betty straighten up, relax her hands. “Yeah, V,” she unlocks the door, catches the tail end of Archie and Jughead arguing over which was the best _Star Wars_ film, “I’m good, I promise.”

(Veronica drives one-handed, most of the time, because she always hooks a pinkie around Betty’s when they’re in the car together. She does it this time, too, only by the time they’ve reached the intersection that splits Betty and Archie’s neighborhood from the rest of Riverdale, Veronica’s palm is flush with hers, their fingers twisted together.

The rush of heat where they touch races up Betty’s arm and down low into her belly. It’s the same feeling she gets kissing Jughead, when his palms slip under the hems of her sweaters and press against her bare skin. It’s a feeling of both terrible longing and terrible fear. It’s the feeling that she’s standing on the edge of a cliff and doesn’t know if she can jump, no matter how badly she wants to.

Jughead catches her eyes in the rearview mirror and gives her that soft, boyish smile of his that had won her over so easily in the beginning. Betty feels a surge of guilt, but doesn’t know why.)

.

.

.

Veronica visits Cheryl every Wednesday and Friday to bring her homework and keep her up to date on all the gossip. Betty drives her to the hospital as often as she can but never goes inside with her. A part of her she had thought long dead still hates Cheryl for all the things she has taken from Betty. Her sister, her self-esteem and, now, her best friend.

Every time she drops Veronica off and promises to pick her up in a couple hours, there’s a bitterness in her voice she can’t contain. Veronica doesn’t seem to notice, or if she does she doesn’t say anything, just squeezes Betty’s hand once with a wink and tells her she’ll be back in a flash.

Every time, it feels like the longest two hours of Betty’s life.

“Are you okay?”

Betty looks blankly up from the depths of her vanilla milkshake. Pop’s in the late afternoon is busy, bustling with most of Riverdale High’s student body and a few parents. Reggie is at the back, by the jukebox, laughing loudly at something Moose has said and pushing quarters into the machine. The Pussycats are three tables over, whisper-yelling about their upcoming set in Greendale. It’s not exactly an easy place to get lost in thought and yet—

“Betts?” Archie waves his cast in front of her face, concerned, and she realizes she never answered him the first time. “Earth to Betty.”

“Sorry, sorry.” She steals a sip of his soda to buy some time, collecting herself. “What were you saying, Arch?”

“I was asking if Veronica had said anything to you about, you know,” he bites the corner of his lip, staring down at the sticky vinyl table top of their booth, “me.”

Betty sits up a little straighter, surprised, knees locking together. “No, why would she?”

She can _hear_ how breathless she sounds, how oddly hopeful, but she still can’t put her finger on why the thought of Veronica and Archie together makes her squirm, why Archie going _I always thought, you and me—_ had made her vibrate with such a deep, all encompassing rage that the only thing she could say besides _you don’t deserve her, asshole_ was, “we found the people we’re supposed to be with,” in hopes she wouldn’t slap him, why her pulse flutters when Veronica clinks their milkshakes together and reminds her it’s the two of them against the world.

Archie stammers, the high points of his face flushing as he looks down at the sticky tabletop. “She, uhm, kinda put the brakes on us.”

Betty sucks in a breath, her nails digging into the vinyl seat covers on either sides of her thighs. Tries very hard to keep her voice a steady, controlled thing. Tries very hard to be the same girl she was four months ago in this same booth with this same boy. “I’m sorry, Arch. Did she say why?”

It’s an illusion of sympathy, honestly, and she should feel awful because this is _Archie,_ for God sakes, what is _wrong_ with her. But she doesn’t. She can’t even muster up a shade of the feeling.

“I think she may have,” Archie’s brows knit together, lower lip caught behind his teeth, “I think she may have given me a pretentious version of ‘it’s not me it’s you?’”

It takes everything in Betty not to laugh. It really does.

Because _of course_ she did. Classic Veronica. Only the thing is, she’d probably meant it.

(This is the thing no one knows about Veronica Lodge — she doesn’t think she deserves any of them. Not Betty, not after she’d kissed the boy of her young dreams, not Archie, who is the antithesis of every guy she’s ever known and so damn _good,_  not even Jughead, for all they’d bickered, who’s temporary home her father had bulldozed and who’s life really wasn’t all that different from her own.

Veronica hates herself almost as much as she hates her father but she will never admit it to anyone and Betty decided long ago that if she had to spend the rest of her life trying to change her mind, she would.

Because that’s what best friends do, right?

Right.)

“Did she… elaborate?”

Archie swirls his straw morosely and Betty _does_ feel for him, suddenly. He’d had a chance with _Veronica Lodge_ and now it was gone. “Something about not being able to put her whole heart into it? I think she was trying to tell me she liked someone else without actually saying it, you know?”

“Not Cheryl,” Betty says, before she can stop herself. The thought leaves a bitter coppery tang in her mouth. “Right?”

Archie shrugs. “She didn’t say. I guess I wouldn’t be surprised, though? They seem really close.”

Betty wants to puke. She orders another round of fries instead.

.

.

.

Betty tries to ask Veronica about Archie, just once, during one of their weekly late-night phone calls. They aren’t as frequent as they were at the start of the school year — Betty’s panic attacks have lessened as her relationship with her mother has improved, and Veronica is nearly clinical in how detached she presents herself to be when it comes to things like her parents. The calls aren’t full of hiccuping sobs and soft murmurs anymore. Now, they’re mostly Veronica filling Betty in on gossip or Rivervixen drama or how Cheryl’s doing.

“Oh, Archie?” Veronica says flippantly, but Betty knows her too well and can hear how hard she’s trying to sound casual, “we were never going to work out. He’s sweet but… well, it was just a heat of the moment thing, you know?”

“It was a pretty long moment,” Betty pries gently. One month, two weeks and six days to be exact. “He’s pretty bummed.”

“I’m sorry,” Veronica says, as if she has anything to apologize for, much less to Betty. “I have a lot going on emotionally currently and I’m just not in any position to be playing house with our resident Golden Boy. It wouldn’t be fair to him.”

 _Emotionally?_ Betty thinks. Which, of course, her dad is getting out of jail. But Veronica makes it sound almost melancholy, the way you’d talk about a lost love. The way Betty used to talk about Archie.

She wants to ask _are you in love with Cheryl?_ Instead, she says, “Jughead joined the Serpents.”

“Oh my God, _Caulfield_ ,” Veronica groans and, just like that, the conversation moves on.

.

.

.

Jughead transfers schools officially just before Archie’s cast comes off. Betty spends the Saturday night before his first week at Southside High laying on the roof of Veronica’s apartment building, counting stars, while the boys have their own version of a sleepover across town.

Veronica’s shoulder is warm under her cheek, the skin soft and smooth and prickling with goosebumps when Betty exhales gently on her neck. It’s chilly, so they’re bundled in layers of blankets and designer sweaters pilfered from the back of the hall closet, Veronica’s famous hot chocolate in two thermoses off to the side.

“I’m scared,” she finally says, quietly, because there are some secrets she can only tell Veronica like this — at night, burrowed away from the rest of the world. “I’m scared that Jason’s murder is the only thing that brought Jug and I together and now that it’s solved and he’s moving schools we’ll just… fall apart.”

“You won’t.” Veronica sounds so certain, even as she inhales sharply when Betty shifts against her. “Has he said the dreaded ‘l’ word yet?”

 _Dreaded?_ Betty blinks up at the tightly clenched cut of Veronica’s jaw. Decides she’ll ask about that later. “No, not yet.”

“Want me to kick his ass?”

Betty almost chokes on the laugh that bursts out of her so suddenly, the conviction in Veronica’s voice as startling as it is amusing. “Oh my God, _no_.”

Veronica shrugs under her, gently so as not to shove Betty off her shoulder. “Well, if he’s going to be an idiot…”

Betty frowns, picking at a loose thread in the comforter, just over Veronica’s heart. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Veronica sighs and twists her head so she’s talking into Betty’s crown, her words slow and precise. “You are, without a doubt, the best thing in this shitty backwater town, and even beyond that. For all that your life has thrown at you, you’ve been nothing but kind, forgiving and protective of people, even if they don’t deserve it.” Then, quieter, like it’s her turn to share a secret: “you’re the kind of person I both wish I could be and don’t deserve. And Jughead Jones is an absolute _tool_ if he can’t see all that you are and hold on to it as tightly as he should.”

Betty doesn’t even realize her eyes are wet until she sniffles and Veronica turns sharply, hands fluttering around her face. “Oh, no, no, Betts, don’t cry, I’m sorry—”

“I don’t deserve _you,_ Veronica Lodge,” she gasps fiercely into the gentle curve of Veronica’s throat, fingers threading with hers to still them. “Nobody does. Nobody ever will. They won’t even come close.”

 _I love you,_ Betty thinks, but can’t bring herself to say, even if she’s thought it a hundred times before, in that fluttery way she does when Veronica does nothing but worship her time and time again, trying to make up for a silly mistake she’d made so long ago. She’s the best friend Betty will ever have. _She’s_ the train to the rest of Betty’s life. She’s so much more.

 _“_ This mascara isn’t waterproof, dammit,” Veronica mutters, pressing her nose into Betty’s hair. Betty giggles and slides one leg between hers, trying to get as close as possible. “I will kick his ass though, if you need me to.”

“I can kick it myself, don’t worry,” Betty mumbles. “I know all his weaknesses.”

“That’s my girl,” Veronica whispers, voice strangely sad and wistful. They fall asleep like that until Smithers comes to wake them up and usher them inside, Betty’s skin burning with the memory of Veronica’s hands on her back, her mouth so close to her temple the baby hairs there stirred every time she breathed.

They stumble their way inside, hands clasped, blankets twisting around their legs, Veronica’s hair tousled with sleep and her eyeliner slightly smudged. Betty looks at her, at the kittenish way she stretches and the taut muscles of her stomach as her shirt rides up.

 _Oh,_ she feels the panic attack coming on, even before her breathing starts to stutter, even before Veronica catches her wide eyes and immediately goes into Crisis Mode, _oh no._

_._

_._

_._

It takes almost a month for her to finally muster up the courage to admit to herself that how she feels about Veronica is not, by any means, platonic. It takes even longer for her to break up with Jughead.

“Is it Archie?” he asks, in a very quiet voice, hands fisted in her duvet. She feels like the worst person in the world, sitting here in her room, telling a boy who’d never thought he was good enough for her to let her go. His eyes are shiny and he’s staring at the floor.

“ _No!”_ The force she says it with startles them both,  but Betty has always known Archie had been a fading dream from the moment Veronica Lodge walked into Pop’s that late summer night and turned them both upside down. “It’s _me_.”

Without meaning to, her eyes flick over to her vanity. A spread of polaroids cover the side of it - a few photos of her and Archie over the years, her and Jughead at Polly’s baby shower, her and Veronica in their cheer outfits, her and Veronica at Pop’s, her and Veronica after the talent show, her and Veronica at lunch huddled together over Veronica’s phone, her and Veronica—

Jughead blinks rapidly, eyebrows drawing together. Betty thinks, horrifyingly, she might be blushing as she realizes ninety percent of the photos in her room are now of Veronica — not Archie who she’s known her whole life, nor Jughead, her boyfriend.

And Jughead, who is too clever and sharp and observant, takes one look at her flushing cheekbones, follows her gaze, and goes: “Oh.”

.

.

.

It gets harder and harder not to snap whenever Veronica brings up Cheryl. Betty feels like she’s wearing thin at the edges, her smiles harder to keep up, her nails trimmed short to keep from reopening old scars. For a while, she can tell Veronica thinks it’s because of her breakup. But when Jughead starts joining them at Pop’s again and there’s no awkwardness, the lie starts to show.

“Okay,” Veronica finally says one day, when it’s just the two of them curled up in the back booth side by side sharing a milkshake, “what’s wrong?”

Betty freezes, lifting her head from Veronica’s shoulder. They’d been going through old photos Veronica had from her days in New York, and there’d been one of Veronica and a leggy redhead hugging tightly that had maybe set Betty’s teeth on edge. She’d thought she’d kept herself in check, though.

She blinks up into Veronica’s dark, worried eyes. “What?”

“You’ve been…” Veronica chews the corner of her mouth. Her lipstick is berry red. There’s no smudge when her teeth drag over her bottom lip. Betty tries very hard not to whimper. “I don’t know. Ever since we pulled Cheryl out of the river it just feels like everything is different.”

Betty swallows. “Things _are_ different.”

“With this wasteland of a town, perhaps,” Veronica says, maybe with more force than she means to, “but it shouldn’t be with _us._ ” Her voice turns tinny, almost desperate. “Did I do something?”

“ _No,”_ Betty says, and it’s like breaking up with Jughead all over again. She hates that she’s been such a wreck that everyone she loves thinks they’ve wronged her. It’s not them, it’s _her,_ it’s always been _her,_ she’s the problem—

“B,” Veronica’s hands are in her hair and Betty realizes she’s hyperventilating, “B, honey, talk to me, please.”

Betty can’t breathe, not with Veronica looking down at her like this with her soft hands and sharp eyes and gentle tone, not when she’s looking at Betty like she wants to gather up all her busted pieces and press them back together, not when all Betty wants to do is surge up and up and _up_ and—

“I _can’t,”_ she says hoarsely, and runs for the bathroom. She can barely hear the click of Veronica’s heels on the linoleum over the pounding in her ears and the door banging hard against the wall when she slams through it.

She wants to go back to the beginning of the year, just after Archie and right before Jughead, to that precious bit of time she had to just be Betty. She wants to go back to being the girl without heartache, the girl who could look her best friend in the eye and not wish desperately for something more.

She wants, more than anything, to stop wanting.

“Betty,” Veronica says, and Betty hears the lock on the door clink, “what’s _wrong?”_

She’s hunched over the sink, chest heaving, caught somewhere between wanting to puke and wanting to scream. Veronica is going to come up behind her and rub between her shoulder blades like she always does and then her hand will creep up to the base of Betty’s skull and rub at the two pressure points there and Betty will hope just like she always does that that hand will slide higher into her ponytail and _pull_ and—

She wants to stop wanting.

“Are you in love with Cheryl?”

Veronica’s breath hitches. Betty _hears_ it. It hurts infinitely worse than Archie’s _I can’t give you the answer you want._ She keeps her head bowed so she doesn’t see Veronica’s face in the mirror.

Veronica’s voice, though, is oddly hopeful. “Why? What do you want me to say?”

Betty swallows. She turns, very slowly, to face Veronica. The lip of the sink is cold against her spine, even through her sweater. Veronica’s mouth is slack, her eyes guarded, everything about her carefully controlled. Like she’s scared of the answer she’ll get. Like she’s as scared as Betty is.

Betty thinks back to all those times some part of her had caught a glance or a gesture or a wistful stare from Veronica and thought _maybe maybe maybe._

“I want you to say no,” she finally whispers _,_ “so it’ll stop hurting whenever I look at you.”

 _I want to be able to spend every minute of the day with you,_ is what she doesn’t say. _I want to be next to you, always._

Veronica is staring at her with those dark eyes, her makeup perfect just like everything else. Times like these, Betty wants to reach out and touch her, just to see if she’s real.

“I don’t know if we’re on the same page here,” Veronica finally murmurs softly, stepping forward. She sets her bag on the tile and Betty starts to say _that’s designer and you don’t know what these floors have seen, V_ but her voice catches in her throat when Veronica touches her shoulder, featherlight.  “But, God, I hope we are.”

Betty blinks. “What—”

And then Veronica’s kissing her, her fingers curling around the back of Betty’s neck, her mouth gentle and easy and damp and _oh. Oh._ It’s like Betty wasn’t breathing until this very moment and Veronica’s exhaling all the air back into her lungs. Like she’s been waiting her whole life for this, for a girl who’s always seemed beyond reach, for a girl who takes her out for spa days and picks up every single time Betty calls at three in the morning crying, for a girl who knows she isn’t okay and pushes and pushes until she has to admit it to herself. For Veronica Lodge to kiss her in a dingy diner bathroom in kitten heels and pearls.

Betty realizes she hasn’t moved and, just as she goes to put her hand on the flare of Veronica’s hip, Veronica pulls back.

“Oh my God,” she says, “we weren’t on the same page. Shit.”

Betty stares at her, wide eyed. Realizes this probably isn’t the reaction Veronica wants to see given how she’s babbling now about misread signals and boundaries and their friendship and how she doesn’t want to ruin it.

“Ronnie,” she interrupts. Veronica stops aggressively smoothing out her skirt to look at her, terrified. “Come here.”

This time Veronica approaches her slowly, as if she’s terrified at any moment Betty will bolt, cupping her palm around the sharp point of Betty’s elbow. Betty slides her hands up Veronica’s arms and over the lace collar of her dress to fist in the dark hair at her nape. Veronica’s lips are soft, the swell of the bottom one fitting perfectly between Betty’s as Betty tries to kiss her with the same careful worship Veronica has always treated _her_ with - like she’s something precious: a flashbang of sunlight, a warrior queen, a violent supernova burning across the sky.

Veronica’s lashes flutter closed and she tips her head ever so slightly, pushing forward, her palm cradling the sharp line of Betty’s jaw. Betty doesn’t realize they’re moving away from the sink until her back hits the door, and then suddenly Veronica’s mouth is _everywhere,_ hot and slick, dragging down the side of her neck with the edge of her teeth, fingers tripping down over her ribs to dig into the hard muscles of Betty’s thighs.

“Tell me this isn’t a dream,” Veronica mumbles, sucking a bruise into the hollow of Betty’s throat. Betty wants to tell her _be careful, if my mom sees that she’ll kill me_ but all she can do is tilt her head back against the door and whimper. “Oh, my God, you’re going to be the death of me.”

Betty huffs a laugh and drags Veronica’s head up so she can pepper kisses across her cheeks, her nose, her mouth. “I could say the same to you.”

Veronica’s hands slide up to curl around her waist loosely. She presses her forehead to Betty’s and exhales. “Are you sure you want this?”

“I’ve never wanted anything more in my life,” Betty says truthfully, thinking back on the past few months and all the joy Veronica has brought into her life without even meaning to. “As long as I’m with you, I know everything’s gonna be okay, V.”

Veronica smiles so brightly Betty wants to kiss her again, all over, her thumbs rubbing in tight circles where the wool of Veronica’s dress stretches taut across her hips. “You realize this means I’m definitely taking you back to New York with me every summer now, right?”

Betty’s heart stutters at how certain Veronica is in them and where they’ll be in six months, a year, longer. She’s always been, if Betty thinks about it. She was never the one running away.

“Maybe take me to dinner first,” is what she mumbles, burying her face in Veronica’s hair to hide the thud in her chest and the flush creeping up her neck.

Veronica laughs, a high, girlish sound she rarely makes these days. “And then New York?”

Betty used to dream of this, of the endless possibilities Veronica was always bubbling with, of the trips and the stories they could share, of the things they could do if Betty would just take the leap. Veronica has always made her feel brave and powerful, has always pulled her into her orbit, has always shared her strength with her. Standing here, in Pop’s dimly lit bathroom, she realizes it doesn’t have to be a dream anymore.

“And then anything we want,” she says, and means it.


End file.
